Tag: avatar

Mugs: A Review

Since I moved out of my parents’ house I’ve accumulated more mugs than any reasonable person needs. I’m also on the lookout for more. It’s gotten to the point where Emily regularly teases me about how many mugs I have. Even though she bought many of them for me. I admit, it’s a lot. But is it enough? Probably not.

So here is a review of some of my favorite mugs, some of them have a story behind them. Others are just neat.

Handmade Mug from Dalhonega Georgia

When I first moved out this was the mug I used the most often and the one that I am using as I write this. I don’t remember the name of the store where I got this mug but I do remember the circumstances.

It was almost immediately after my graduation from college, my cousin was getting married so my father and I drove down to Georgia for the wedding. My father’s sixtieth birthday was also happening that week and my aunts had arranged for a surprise party at a restaurant in Dalhonega.

After the party, my dad and I took a walk around town and wandered into a pottery shop where almost everything had been handmade by the man who owned it. We were looking around, and at this point I think we had signed the lease for my new apartment, and my dad decided that I needed a mug as a housewarming present and told me to pick one.

It’s a good mug and it’s safe for dishwasher and microwave use. Although the shape is a little unusual I really love the little imperfections from when it was made. It really adds to the uniqueness of the mug.

Saratoga Coffee Traders 10 Year Anniversary Mug

Saratoga Coffee Traders is a coffee shop in, you guessed it, Saratoga Springs. They’re also one of the best places to go to get Death Wish Coffee, which is not unique to them but they do sell a lot of it. If you haven’t had Death Wish Coffee then you need to. It’s loaded with caffeine, perfect for those morning where you want to wake up and induce a heart attack at the same time.

Besides serving various drinks and snacks, Coffee Traders also sells a selection of mugs, bagged coffee, coffee accessories, and coffee-sponsored comic books (yes you read that right). The problem is all of these cost money, so while I would stand in line waiting to order a large Death Wish I would often admire the various mugs on display and look mournfully at the price tags. So one Christmas my dad asked me what I wanted and I said I wanted a mug from Saratoga Coffee Traders.

He ended up getting me two of these anniversary mugs. These mugs are handmade and they are BIG. They are very well made and I like the colors, the problem is that they are so large that my coffee often cools down before I am able to drink it all. Because of this I don’t use these mugs often but I do enjoy them. Plus they tie in nicely to the next mug on the list.

Saratoga Guitar 25th Anniversary Mug

Okay, I know what you’re thinking.

“Damn that’s one fine looking mug. I want that mug.”

Well too bad. You can’t have it.

This mug was part of a very limited run that my father had made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his store, Saratoga Guitar. He had always sold hats and shirts but had also talked for a long time about adding other merchandise. So to celebrate the stores anniversary he ordered a limited run of these mugs from Deneen Pottery. Deneen Pottery is the same company that made the Coffee Traders mug. They specialize in hand made, custom ceramics.

Besides being the owner of Saratoga Guitar, my father also organized and ran the Capital Region Guitar Show. A yearly/twice yearly (depending on the year) convention in Saratoga Springs for guitar aficionados. To celebrate the 25th year of being in business by father organized an after party for the 2019 show. Many of his friends came to perform for this afterparty, pizza was delivered hourly, and multiple charities came to fundraise at the event. My dad also ordered a very limited quantity of these mugs. Most of them were immediately sold or given to staff, so yeah, if you want one then too bad. You should have come to the show.

This mug is a little awkward because of the large lip, but it’s easily my favorite mug and the one I use most frequently.

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Mug

You may not know this, but I happen to be a brother of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity, the world’s oldest and largest secret national music fraternity. Though Greek Life has many issues, fraternity members rarely live up to stereotypes, and for many fraternities provides a safe space for men to connect with other men without having to worry about the baggage that comes with toxic masculinity.

Being a part of this fraternity helped me a lot in college, I was chapter president during my senior year and since graduation I’ve continued to work with my fraternity as a regional alumni coordinator. Mostly I just send out newsletters, but it gives me something to do and many alumni are very appreciative of my efforts and it’s nice to be appreciated.

I don’t get as many occasions to wear letters as I used to, but I like keeping around a few mugs that I can break out during virtual province meetings.

American Chemical Society Membership Mug

The American Chemical Society does this cool thing where they send mugs to their members that correspond to the number of years they have been a member. This one is Hydrogen (Element 1) because it was send to me for my one year anniversary of membership. Roughly.

Unfortunately I don’t have any more of these because membership fees are expensive for a lowly graduate student such as myself so I chose not to renew. But still, I love ACS swag.

The Wisdom of Uncle Iroh Mug

This is a relatively recent addition to my collection. At the start of quarantine I got back into Avatar the Last Airbender, and I mean REALLY into it. And so did several of my friends.

Randomly, my friend Lauren, who is also a fan, saw this mug and ordered me one and I love it. Lauren is pretty cool and you should check her out. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram as a_science_life, she also founded ForensicBites, a scicomm initiative that makes new developments in forensic science accessible to the general public.

Hartwick College Mug

One of my greatest regrets from undergrad is that I never bought a mug. I was a poor college student so I would often admire the mugs and other drinkware but never bought one. Eventually, I graduated and I was a poor college student no longer. Instead I became a poor graduate student and I was finally able to buy one of the mugs I had wanted for so long.

I have no complaints about this mug but also no special praise. I enjoy the shape of it and the finish has a nice texture. The only problem is that sometimes soap scum sticks to the outside. It’s not a big deal though, and it’s a good mug.

Thanks for reading this far! This post is a little different from my normal content. If you like it and want me to create more content you can help out by buying me a coffee.

The Best Things About Bending

Elemental magic is hard to do right. The four classical elements are so ingrained in us that we all are likely to add elemental worldbuilding into our first settings, but it’s hard to do well. The four elements have been done so much that it’s hard to be original. It’s hard to make elemental magic feel like it’s really a part of the world and not just a later add on.

Yet the elements are so pervasive that the internet is full of people showing off their elemental magics systems where they very creatively include their own elements like shadow, mud, or even magma.

There is nothing wrong with making an elemental magic system. It comes naturally to us for a reason. But if you want to your elemental magic to work it’s going to take a lot of effort.

Of the very limited selection of examples I have been exposed too I have only seen two instances of elemental magic done well; Codex Alera by Jim Butcher, and Avatar the Last Airbender.

Unlike Avatar, Codex Alera has six elements, not four. Each element has it’s uses, but some elements are clearly more useful that others. To be fair, the characters are at war for just about the entire series and for obvious reasons the characters are most interest in the elements that help them to kill the enemy. In Avatar the elements have a place in daily life and each can easily contend with the other. As much as I love Codex Alera, the world of Avatar just feels more alive.

Physicality

This is something that can really only be done in a visual medium, but Avatar does it so well. Not only is each of the four based in a different marital art, different styles have their own variations.

For me the most obvious example of this are the pro-benders. Their quick jabs and evasions evoke images of professional boxers, and the bending they do reflects that. They’re all about quick attacks and evasions and it shows. Against a real fighter not constrained by the rules of the ring they quickly fall short. There movements are of peoples trained to do one thing well rather than master their element.

What’s the best thing about this? For me it’s that practice gets results. In most fantasy it can be hard to show characters getting better with magic. In Avatar their magic is so tightly linked to their movements and thinking that it’s almost impossible not to. A bender’s philosophy and mindset impact their bending in a very visible way.

Balance

Elemental magic is so common that it’s hard not to have prejudices.

Earth, Water, Air, Fire. Which would you choose? Which is the best?

In fantasy that has a four element system we don’t always get an equal view of each element. Everyone expects fire to be aggression or water to be healing. Avatar may not give every element the same amount of screen time, but they each have the same amount of potential. Every element is shown to have its own limitations and strengths but none is ever made to look weaker than the others.

In fact the best benders, like Iroh, take the time to learn from the other elements and see what practices they can incorporate into their own art.

Incorporation

Each of the four nations is inseparable from their element.

Too often in fantasy, magic is treated as something separate from the rest of society. In the Avatar universe magic is inseparable from the larger society. The trains and mail in Omashu are moved by earth benders. The builds in the Norther Water Tribe are clearly built with the help of water benders, and the the Fire Nation could not have had its industrial base without the fire benders to power the furnaces.

This arrangement brings obvious inequalities to mind. What can a normal person do when bending is so prevalent?

It’s an important question to ask and one that doesn’t get enough attention in the Legend of Korra. What do non-benders get?

Even so, the prevalence of bending in these societies becomes even more important. What happens when technology progresses? What happens when the non-benders no longer need the benders? While not fully addressed in The Legend of Korra, it’s still an interesting question that fantasy should address. What does magic do when it can’t hide?

Conclusion

Avatar the Last Airbender is an amazing series. I’ve loved it since I first saw the pilot in a hotel room when I was ten. Any time I thought I might want to make an elemental magic system I’ve turned to the wiki and realized that I simply couldn’t beat it.

It’s not the magic, or setting, it’s how real everything feels. The entire world is infused with the love of its creators and speaks to the wonders that can be achieved by a few dedicated worldbuilders.

What I most love about Avatar is that the otherwise cliché elemental magic can be innovative in the right context. Any magic, any idea, can feel real in the right setting. It speaks to the strength of good worldbuilding and it has been in my mind ever since I saw the first episode.

Really though, the best part of Avatar is that the magic doesn’t feel like magic. It just feels like a part of the world.

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Is The Legend of Korra Any Good?

Maybe.

I began watching (several years late) knowing that fans have a love/hate relationship with the show. Nevertheless, I tried to keep an open mind and managed to make it through to the end. And I have a lot of thoughts. I struggled writing this post, I tried to write a coherent essay about the Legend of Korra. Instead have this listicle.

If I had to sum up my thoughts about what was wrong with the series it would be this. It had a lot of potential, multiple good moments, and a lot of missed chances.

The Bending

If you’ve read any of my other posts you’ll know by now that I love magic systems and bending is no exception. The world of Avatar is one of the few examples of a fantasy world where elemental magic doesn’t feel like the cliche. It feels real and it’s an integral part of the setting and culture. Getting to see subsets of bending reach maturity, especially metal bending, is just great.

It was also great to see an airbending master let loose. Don’t get me wrong, Aang is great, but he never really put his airbending on full display like Tenzin does in this series.

I guess airbending is good for something other than marble tricks after all.

Finally, I was glad to see the creators stick with giving each style of bending a distinctive visual. Pro Benders, the professional athletes of the Avatar world. have a very distinctive style regardless of element that shows a focus on quick attacks and agile dodges. That this style of bending rarely holds up outside of the confines of the arena is a nice touch.

The main issue with the bending in this series is Korra’s weakness. Already at the beginning of season one it’s implied that she has already mastered three of the four elements. Yet throughout the series she repeatedly get’s brushed aside by her opponents. This is especially apparant in season one when she starts Pro Bending and apparently forgets everything she knows about bending in the process. Her fights with the Equalists are filled with quick jabs like those used in the arena when she could have just brought the building down. By the end of his first season Aang was sinking entire fleets on his own. With the exception of an incredibly cartoonish fight in season 2 we never get that from Korra.

The Villains

None of the villains were bad exactly, at least the ideas for them weren’t. It makes sense that non-benders would begin demanding equal treatment or that established forms of government would be overthrown or forced to change. Or that people would forget to honor the spirits and cause backlash by doing so.

The problem with these villains is that we never really get to explore their motives. In her role as avatar Korra takes for granted that the world is already the way it should be. In season 4 it’s finally said that Korra helped get better treatment for non-benders but that’s not something we ever see her caring about in the first season while she is fighting Amon.

In Avatar the Last Airbender the protagonists dealt with concepts like imperialism, war , refugees, gender roles, and disabilities to name just a few. Legend of Korra introduces its own ideas, but never really deals with them in the same way. Time and time again Korra sees the problems that gave rise to the villains she has to face and each time she turns the other way.

Not Doing the Thing

So conflicts could have been resolved if the characters had done the sensible thing. I realize that if characters never made mistakes we’d never have story, but LoK has some really spectacular mistakes.

Why for example did Suyin Beifong refuse to restore order in Ba Sing Sei after the Earth Queen’s death? Morals aside, she at the time ruled one of the most advanced cities in the world with dedicated cadre of trained fighters. She had at this point already took her forces out of the city to help the avatar and the fledgling air nomads. Her refusal to help led directly to Kuvira’s rise to power.

While we’re on the topic of inaction. Why in season four was the Fire Lady so unwilling to take action against Kuvira? Given all the work Zuko put into rehabilitating the nation’s image after the war this attitude makes sense to a point. Did she really forget that her son is a part of the army that would very likely have to fight Kuvira on its own if the Fire Nation refused to help?

For a country seemingly dedicated to inaction the United Republic has a lot of warships.

And why didn’t General Iroh just order his troops to fight Kuvira? I understand that the president had ordered him to surrender but it’s not like he wouldn’t have been able to see what a terrible idea surrender was. Plus as a member of the Fire Nation’s royal family he isn’t lacking in career options. After the role he played in season one, his part in season four was just disappointing.

The Spirits

I actually enjoyed Avatar Wan’s story. I know a lot of people did not. But it didn’t actually contradict any of the existing lore, if anything it gave it greater context, and the different art style made it clear that the story was being told with some embellishments.

The problem I have is with how the spirits were portrayed in the rest of the series. in the Last Airbender the spirits had gravitas. They were forces of nature or strange creatures bordering on being eldrich horrors. LoK’s spirits are essentially neopets that get angry sometimes. It’s no wonder the people of the Avatar World stopped listening to them.

I do however like that Iroh was able to live on in the spirit world. It made sense for his character and as a big fan of Iroh I was glad to see him come back.

The Tech

At first the huge jump in technological progress that happened between ATLA and LoK was jarring, but it grew on me. The series has a wonderful steampunk/magitech aesthetic and the ways that we see bending and technology intermingle is just great.

Almost none of this tech got used after season one and that’s a tragedy.

With all the advances in technology I don’t quite understand why we don’t see as many non-benders taking part in conflicts as we did the ATLA.

The Verdict

The Legend of Korra had some good moments and a lot of bad moments, but it’s still a fun watch. If you want to see powerful benders driving around in shiny cars then this is the show for you. Like most things, it helps if you watch it for fun and don’t question it too much.

If you liked the first series then you should definitely watch this one, as long as you don’t raise your expectations too high you should still be able to enjoy it. I still don’t think it at all measured up to the first series, but at least I had fun watching it.

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All the images here were sourced from the Avatar wiki.